Thursday, April 02, 2015

Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say. Parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are “morally irrelevant” and ending their lives is no different to abortion, a group of medical ethicists linked to Oxford University has argued.

The article, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, says newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life”. The academics also argue that parents should be able to have their baby killed if it turns out to be disabled when it is born.

The journal’s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, said the article's authors had received death threats since publishing the article. He said those who made abusive and threatening posts about the study were “fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society”.

The article, entitled “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?”, was written by two of Prof Savulescu’s former associates, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.

Notice how long it has taken to go from "abortion is not murder" to "abortion is murder and murder is okay". 45 years. And it is morbidly amusing to see the journal's editor complaining about the death threats. If "the very values of a liberal society" include the right to murder newborn babies, then number me among the fanatics opposed to it.

If newborn babies are not actual persons, then how can one reasonably limit the right to kill them to the parents? Since they can't be property, it seems to me that the moral logic suggests that anyone who might happen to feel like killing them has a right to do so.

These people are a death cult. They worship death. Nothing turns them on more than the idea of wiping out humanity... except for themselves, of course. And then there is that name, Savulescu. Where did he get his doctorate, Transylvania?

Huh. I made the argument that it should be fine to kill babies up to a year after birth in a college Ethics course because I was bored, but I never thought someone would seriously advocate the idea. Heck, the other students were practically in a blind rage and I was just some random schmuck classmate.

A death cult that wants to make sure you feel pampered while doing so, so now we will have abortion spa's.

"Carafem is a new kind of abortion clinic offering women a “spa-like” experience. Beginning this week, clients will be welcomed with hot tea and comfy robes in the clinic, which features wood floors, plush upholstery and natural wood tones, so it resembles a high-end salon or spa."

“It was important for us to try to present an upgraded, almost spa-like feel,” Melissa Grant, vice president of health services for the clinic, told The Washington Post."

"Carafem is a new kind of abortion clinic offering women a “spa-like” experience. Beginning this week, clients will be welcomed with hot tea and comfy robes in the clinic, which features wood floors, plush upholstery and natural wood tones, so it resembles a high-end salon or spa."

Gene Wolfe in his book AN EVIL GUEST makes a casual reference to 'Postnatal Abortion' -- talking heads on television are discussing whether it should be extended beyond five years for defectives -- as a throw away comment meant to show how morally depraved the people of that dystopian far future had grown, and how unaware of their own depravity.AN EVIL GUEST was written in 2009 ...

Oh c'mon. Peter Singer has been arguing this in the US for decades, alongside the idea that we have no right to enslave animals. The operative catchphrase, which you may have heard from an animal rights enthusiast is "a pig is a dog is a bug is a boy".

And to be fair, it's the only logical conclusion once you accept the premises of Atheist Materialism.

In this light, it is easy to see the grinning skull beneath the entire panoply of pseudo-religions like Gaia worship. If babies have no claim to life, neither then do people who exhale CO2 or fail to recycle their plastics.

Collectivists want one set of rules, theirs, and one group of ultimate decision-makers, them.

I prefer relatively black-and-while rules with gray areas left to individual conscience, where the rules begin from axioms of consensus. The problem with this is "consensus." There are no solutions to problems based in the duality of human nature.

Man's desire for sin is bottomless. No amount of evidence or argument will turn them back.

10 as it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one;11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.”“The venom of asps is under their lips.”14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;16 in their paths are ruin and misery,17 and the way of peace they have not known.”18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

They argued: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”

Rather than being “actual persons”, newborns were “potential persons”. They explained: “Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’.

“We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.”

As such they argued it was “not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense”.

See, this is what happens when doctors try to do philosophy.

Prof Savulescu, said that arguments in favour of killing newborns were “largely not new”.

No shit. Opponents of abortion have been warning about precisely this for decades, and mocked as crazies by pro-choice advocates.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, he added: “This “debate” has been an example of “witch ethics” - a group of people know who the witch is and seek to burn her. It is one of the most dangerous human tendencies we have. It leads to lynching and genocide. Rather than argue and engage, there is a drive is to silence and, in the extreme, kill, based on their own moral certainty. That is not the sort of society we should live in.”

Boo-fucking-hoo. You want to see someone who would kill for his own "moral certainty"? Look in the mirror, you hellspawn maggot.

I read the article and scanned the comments. While most readers took it at face value, a number of people suggested that the ethicists were trying to subvert the rationale for abortion on demand. The references to the state's interest seemed almost over the top, but then again this is Europe. I really can't tell if this is dead serious or a new Modest Proposal. Poe's Law strikes again.

Isn't Profesor Savulescu being somewhat provencial with his complaint about death threats? Why is he opposed to the threat-makers expressing their heart-felt desire to perform post-natal abortions on the author's of the article? I mean, if we're not going to stop at birth, why stop at 1 or 5 or 50 years after?

Personally I'm not in favor of making it a "spa-like experience" for the post-natal abortionees, hardwood floors and what not are expensive to maintain when they're drenched with blood. Concrete is more practical, slaughter houses have concrete floors for a reason.

Of course, a ditch out behind the camp is even cheaper, and works just as well.

From abortion to infanticide. One distinction there is time, and arguably of no consequence if one is to take them seriously. So would it also not be permissable to off these two clowns even if it's years later under any argued rubic that they never reached beyond potential personhood?

"So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which He had done for Israel...When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel."

Destruction is the only end that the mystics’ creed has ever achieved, as it is the only end that, you see them achieving today, and if the ravages wrought by their acts have not made them question their doctrines, if they profess to be moved by love, yet are not deterred by piles of human corpses, it is because the truth about their souls is worse than the obscene excuse you have allowed them, the excuse that the end justifies the means and that the horrors they practice are means to nobler ends. The truth is that those horrors are their ends.

Ayn Rand herself was in favor of abortion, an enemy of Christianity, yet I think the above quote captures this sort perfectly.

As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”

The king replied, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?” Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?”

She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.” When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore his robes. (II Kings 6)

At least there was a famine.

I thought it was an April Fools article at first . . . but, well then . . . it's the 2nd.

For although they knew G-d, they neither glorified him as G-d nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools . (Romans 1)

I bet these oh so civilized authors would be incensed if someone compared them to the Nazis. If the definition of a "person with a right to live" is malleable then it most certainly can change to suit whoever is in power.

This is the logical extension of abortion, which itself is only the logical extension of capital punishment, which is itself only a logical extension of "justified" killing (just war theory, etc).

The commandments says "Thou shalt not kill." It is emphatic, concise, uncomplicated.

Once men arrogate too ourselves the decision as to who lives and who dies, this is where we end up.

The irony is not the death threats, but the suicidally contradictory offense at them; once the decision as to who lives and who dies is purely a matter of politics, of might making right, then anyone with the capacity to kill these idiots is justified in so doing, should the killers decide the world is better off without them. There's no possible intellectual or moral objection to such an act on the part of people advocating these ideas. Only a purely legal -- i.e. wholly artificial and self-serving - objection is logically possible, a la "the people with the most guns say they will kill you if you kill me.".

But once people cease to be afraid of the people with the most guns, i.e. the government, then all bets are off.

Oh, they're floating this balloon again. Peter Singer did it in the early 90's - scrounging up a random internet quote:

In 1993, ethicist Peter Singer shocked many Americans by suggesting that no newborn should be considered a person until 30 days after birth and that the attending physician should kill some disabled babies on the spot.

Then there was enough objections that they went quiet for a few decades, but they must think it's time to try again. And why not, they're seeing success removing classical freedoms (religion, speech, conscience, assembly) with made up ones (homosexual marriage and right to be served on demand, politically correct censorship).

I'm finishing up a short book supposed to be on atheism (Despicable Meme by Webb), but it's really about how progressive politics shouldn't be hampered by things like religion, and how the politically faithful should stop wasting time with liberal religions and family traditions and officially become 'atheists' to focus 100% on the important things like political power and implementing the societal changes - unite and rule over the evil political and societal opponents! He floated the idea that if the political left didn't hang on to their religious beliefs, they could use 'backwards religion' against their political opponents, but that clinging by liberal Jews and Christians to their 'unimportant religions' was blocking using a "religion is clouding your mind" weapon fully against anyone who disagrees with them politically.

In fact, while the climate of widespread moral uncertainty can in some way be explained by the multiplicity and gravity of today's social problems, and these can sometimes mitigate the subjective responsibility of individuals, it is no less true that we are confronted by an even larger reality, which can be described as a veritable structure of sin. This reality is characterized by the emergence of a culture which denies solidarity and in many cases takes the form of a veritable "culture of death". This culture is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency. Looking at the situation from this point of view, it is possible to speak in a certain sense of a war of the powerful against the weak: a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another. A person who, because of illness, handicap or, more simply, just by existing, compromises the well-being or life-style of those who are more favoured tends to be looked upon as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated. In this way a kind of "conspiracy against life" is unleashed. This conspiracy involves not only individuals in their personal, family or group relationships, but goes far beyond, to the point of damaging and distorting, at the international level, relations between peoples and States.

@ScuzzaManI'm going to call Bull on that chain of illogic. Firstly, abortion is not the logical extension of capital punishment - the infant has committed no capital crime. Second, the proper translation of the command is "Murder", not just "kill".

These people support the killing of the disabled and inconvenient. Their lack of compassion (which is clearly in the sociopathic range) and foresight (EVERYBODY becomes inconvenient at some point in their lives) clearly makes them both disabled and inconvenient.

I read this article several years ago. A couple of the key points are these: 'While accepting that many people would disagree with their arguments, he wrote: “The goal of the Journal of Medical Ethics is not to present the Truth or promote some one moral view. It is to present well reasoned argument based on WIDELY ACCEPTED PREMISES.” ' (obnoxious caps my addition, obviously)

followed by this: "He said the journal would consider publishing an article positing that, if there was no moral difference between abortion and killing newborns, then abortion too should be illegal."

These professors were simply taking modern day arguments to their logical conclusions. They might, indeed, be monsters; I don't know what their motivations were. But in serving up our own accepted premises back to us in the most heinous way, they certainly have provided something akin to Swift's Modest Proposal.

I saw this article when it came out 3 years ago. I find it amusing that there is concern over death threats directed at the authors. If the threats were followed through, should we not consider them delayed post-partum abortions?

Jill - These professors were simply taking modern day arguments to their logical conclusions... But in serving up our own accepted premises back to us in the most heinous way, they certainly have provided something akin to Swift's Modest Proposal.

My emotional response is that these evil bastards should be impaled in front of their peers as a warning that this sort of evl will never be tolerated by society. Thankfully, my emotion don't govern society.

If someone has no morality, I'm not sure where they get their idea of "moral right to live". On what are they basing their own proclaimed "moral right to live"? Maybe it is morally acceptable for someone to perform a post-birth abortion on Savulescu. On what basis would he say it is morally wrong except based on his own self-interest?

> I really can't tell if this is dead serious or a new Modest Proposal. Poe's Law strikes again.

Agreed. The arguments they make show clearly that the only bright line separating non-person from person is the birth event. Anything else is entirely arbitrary, and can be used to declare anyone a non-person. That may have been their point, but it's impossible to say for certain.

I don't know how anyone can determine whether or how much a newborn values life and or whether he would feel loss at the thought of losing it. Newborns are conscious. Conversely, I'm not sure how I can truly determine whether a conscious grown man truly values life and deserves the label "person". If this is how we determine personhood, then we need to establish parameters outside the realm of philosophy. No, I don't actually think we should do that. But the definition they are using for "personhood" is retarded.

James Dixon - Their definition does, but who says their definition is the "correct" one?

It's a definition with no basis in fact, chosen only to rationalize a foregone conclusion. It's rhetorical deck stacking. They could just as easily define "person" to mean anything and justify whatever they want.

Heck, even their own definition is useless since you can't actually confirm that anyone except yourself is capable of attributing value to his or her own existence. Even if they say they do, you don't know for sure.

Heck, even their own definition is useless since you can't actually confirm that anyone except yourself is capable of attributing value to his or her own existence. Even if they say they do, you don't know for sure.

Des Cartes could have a field day with this, assuming he has a sense of humor.

In here, you could find a very reasonable argument to kill everyone around you... while criminalizing suicide!

1/3rd of all conceptions spontaneously abort. Should each one be mourned the same as a stillbirth? Is there a difference between a fertilized egg failing to implant and a fetus at 17 weeks' gestation whose heartbeat stops? Or that fetus and the one that makes it "out" whole, but fails to thrive? Or the baby with an extra 18th chromosome, or Tay-Sachs?

To the Roman Catholic, the answer must be they are all exactly the same. Oral contraceptives are disallowed specifically because they, as a back-up mechanism, prevent implantation of any egg that makes it past ovulation-prevention and meets a sperm on the way through the fallopian tube.

While doctrinally consistent, this leads to what significant numbers of observers deem irrational conclusions (e.g., most sexually active young women would be wearing black half the time they were between pregnancies.)

The point of the OP is how once you allow you're on a continuum there are no objective endpoints. The problem is that seeing this as a spectrum remains unavoidable in practice.

Gene Wolfe in his book AN EVIL GUEST makes a casual reference to 'Postnatal Abortion' -- talking heads on television are discussing whether it should be extended beyond five years for defectives

John, isn't amazing that the Journal of Medical Ethics are discussing things logically yet miss one of the fundamentals of rational thought, that of the excluded middle? A baby is a person and a person begins life at conception. There is no middle ground. Otherwise what's five years compared to 40 or 50? One is not only justified in making death threats but one could make an argument for carrying out the action.

@Davidfor instance this:"To the Roman Catholic, the answer must be they are all exactly the same. Oral contraceptives are disallowed specifically because they, as a back-up mechanism, prevent implantation of any egg that makes it past ovulation-prevention and meets a sperm on the way through the fallopian tube."is simply a strawman. That's not the reason, it has nothing to do with the reason, and you would know that if you took the least trouble to investigate before you started commenting.

WinstonWebb - Yet just 2 successors later and the current pontiff is the darling of that same culture.

He's the Rorschach pope. They see what they want to see.

The guy reminds people Christianity isn't about being horrible to gays, so the media does cartwheels thinking that means he's joined the LGBTWTF conga line, or something. As soon as even the thickest of journalists is forced to conclude that Catholic dogma hasn't actually changed, he'll be painted as a woman-hating, gay-bashing kiddy fiddler.

None of this is any more "real" than the media's belief that Benedict was some sort of snarling rottweiler.

Francis is leftish on economics - like all modern popes and most clergymen in general, he's well-meaning but ignorant on the subject. Doesn't help that he's from a country that regards paying debts as optional.

But on abortion? Or infanticide? He cannot be anything but rock-solid against it.

Murder is o.k. if females do it. Before or after giving birth. Anything females want or do -- no matter how horrible -- is fine with America. Progress and Liberation, actually.

If a man wants to murder (baby or otherwise) well the full weight of society (women/mangias) will fall on him. But if murder empowers or enriches a female -- or helps her to Fell Better About Herself for a few minutes, well, that's called The Law.

Actually results in more physically painful "menstruation" and if a woman is sensitive to that kind of thing, will learn it was a miscarriage.

Should each one be mourned the same as a stillbirth?

They often are by women who value life... even those who consider themselves "pro-choice" often alter their views after miscarriage... which says there was something they found significant about their pregnancy and their child's death.

Is there a difference between a fertilized egg failing to implant and a fetus at 17 weeks' gestation whose heartbeat stops?By the virtue of knowledge of its existence, there definitely is a difference. You don't know your pregnant until implantation. Some women even feel the implanting. But regardless, implantation is when the woman's body begins changing.

It is also more physically painful to miscarry. And for most women, that time represents 12 weeks of preparing mentally for that baby.

Or that fetus and the one that makes it "out" whole, but fails to thrive? Or the baby with an extra 18th chromosome, or Tay-Sachs?

The only difference between this and a 6 week miscarriage is the blood, sweat, tears, emotional upheaval, time, scars, and money invested in bringing that life into the world.

But its no less painful or difficult for the woman grieving over the 6 week old "foetus".

Seriously? How little compassion you show to women who have suffered through miscarriages.

"..a number of people suggested that the ethicists were trying to subvert the rationale for abortion on demand."

After checking the article's date of publication to rule out any April Fool's shenanigans, that was my next thought. Could this be an extreme "agree & amplify" tactic for black-knighting? The part where they're defining "absolute person" versus "potential person" reads like that old Monty Python sketch where the man tries to buy an argument, and the "values of liberal society" quote is so brazenly oblivious that it comes across as cartoonish.

"The authors therefore concluded that “what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is...

If that's not black-knighting,...... wow, just wow..... I can't even....#triggered.

Also, Danby, if life begins at conception (fertilization) then the fertilized egg that fails to implant is a death. Words mean what they mean, even if you read Lewis Carroll.

This is also why Catholic doctrine prohibits in-vitro fertilization; each and every zygote is considered a human being, and discarding those not implanted is tantamount to murder. I'm not here to argue over such a view, or even criticize it. I'm just pointing out that law has much to do with consensus, and attempts to establish moral law that conflicts with even a sizable minority viewpoint does not work (e.g., the Volstead Act.)

Savulescu learned unimpeachable liberal values first in Australia, where he was born, raised and educated. He received both his medical degree and his philosophy doctorate in Australia. In other words, Transylvania doesn't want anything to do with this thoroughly Anglo pozmaster -- he's Romanian the same way that Lermontov was Scottish.

David,Ironic that you of all people would refer to the Dunning-Kruger effect.

"This particular doctrine, often expounded by the magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act. " --Humane VitaeIn smaler words, ones you might be able to understand, the Church teaches that artificial contraception is wrong because is Breaks Sex. making it into something other than God intended.

No, David, I don't expect you to accept that. Hell, I don't even expect you to understand it, but please, for the sake of Vanity, at least, if not Truth, stop spouting your ignorance. If you want to argue what the Church teaches, make a minimal effort to actually find out what it does indeed teach.

As Cardinal Sheen said “There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.”

"Seriously? How little compassion you show to women who have suffered through miscarriages."

Whose 17 week fetus' heart do you think stopped beating? Where in my comment did you read me suggest this is (was) not heart-wrenching? (Imagine what I'm refraining to say about your parentage.) To suggest you were reading into my comment is an understatement.

I've apparently a lot more experience with this than do you. Yes, some women feel "something" at implantation but if that was reliable, who'd need EPT's? No market for them, is there? The notion that a spontaneous abortion is noticeable must rest on you assuming they are well into gestation. Most of that 1/3rd, however, is simply failure to implant, which if you or any (other) woman can notice, I'll agree to change my view. To even suggest that an non-implanting zygote has one iota of effect on a woman's subsequent menstruation is amusing at best.

Also, you bold-copied my question about an extra 18th, or Tay-Sachs, but you didn't actually address it. I don't presume to tell a husband and wife what they should or (worse) must do if she is carrying a baby doomed by an error in a parent's sex-cell meiosis. Some things are too personal for me, a bystander, to intrude upon.

So why then is it controversial to say, as a Reactionary, that these people are deserving of the same fate as that which they hand out to 'war criminals'? When they talk of attacking the butchers of ISIS with missiles from the air, we are all supposed to cheer and applaud, but when someone suggests the same fate for our elite, people shudder and quake?

The difference between and conservative and a Reactionary.

A Conservative stupidly thinks he's just dealing with the uninformed and unintelligent.

A Reactionary knows he's dealing with evil.

Liberals are twice as murderous as any swarthy skinned desert dweller.

@David,And the ignorance just keeps on coming."This is also why Catholic doctrine prohibits in-vitro fertilization; each and every zygote is considered a human being, and discarding those not implanted is tantamount to murder. I'm not here to argue over such a view, or even criticize it."

1) the second sentence is a lie, and you know it's a lie.2) The Church objects to in vitro conception because it deprives the child of his rights and instead treats him as an object.

Well, with natural law, and natural law derived rights out the window, the organisms of the left flail about for some other possible reason not to kill human annoyances or impediments, and eventually of course the insufficiently "prosocial".

Having tried, "empathy", and "sentience" and found them wanting, they are just about to settle once and for all on mere acts of will.

But as the notion of an essential humanity cannot be abided because of its oppressive" implications, the notion of person is dragged out with no more success. Because, in a system where no teleological inferences can be admitted, and wherein facts and values are held to be irreducibly dichotomous, there is no solution to the puzzle of how one deduces real rights from anything, be it humans, or sentient entities, or "persons" somehow defined.

Maybe they will kill themselves before they actively start on others. But I would not bet on it.

Yet, as Vox points out, even as members of a class of entities which have no real as opposed to conventional entitlement to their own lives, you can expect them to get worked up when it is remarked on to them.

I made the mistake of reading from the list of sites yielded by searching on,"Catholic oral contraceptives abortifacient."

While your criticism of me for my ignorance on this subject as a non-Catholic is accurate, I don't think it applies as well to a number of the sources listed there.

I also suggest that there must be few Good Catholics around who have fewer than, say, 10 kids....or else husbands and wives are not engaging in the "marriage act" until after she hits menopause. Or is counting days not a volitional act to disassociate the unitative and procreative elements of physical union?

The argument better framed this way: genetic science tells us who's human - born or unborn. It doesn't tell us who has legal rights. Society withdraws the Right to Life from spies, enemy combatants, death row inmates, Blacks (in the Old South), Jews (in Nazi Germany), Christians who refuse to convert (in Muslim lands).

America has already decided mothers have the right to kill their own children. All we're discussing now is . . . when must they stop?

Danby, why are we so far off in the ditch? My view is formed by simply reading what others (including Catholic Priests) have written on these subjects. If you wish to battle your fellow-travelers over doctrine, do it directly, not via my surrogacy.

Between my Eldest and youngest daughter, my wife and I had a miscarriage.It was one of the most painful experiences of our lives, I don't recall ever feeling so sad and such a tremendous sense of loss ever before.Our little one taken from us, just like that.We are thankful to Our Lord for His strength and the strength He gave us.I can't begin to fathom consciously terminating a child.

There is any amount of misinformation and stupidity out there as to what the Church teaches on any and every subject. Much of it is born of malice, but most is simple "folk knowledge" that happens not to be true.

"Savulescu learned unimpeachable liberal values first in Australia, where he was born, raised and educated. He received both his medical degree and his philosophy doctorate in Australia."

According to my in-depth research on Wikipedia, Savulescu studied under Peter Singer. I'm not exactly an expert on Australian-rules bio-ethics, but isn't that the guy the ilk pointed out as the fountainhead of crazy, pro-animal, anti-human philosophy?

...I think it was C.S. Lewis who said something to the effect that the modern revolutionary will argue that a cop killing a prole is a waste of life, but then turn around and argue that all life is a waste of time.

There is only one thing to be done with priests of Baal: Mock them, wipe them out, and move on with the business of being human. If you openly promote murders of convenience, you'd better not whine when people come to get rid of you monsters.

"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

Arguments from popularity are not only fallacious, but unbiblical as well.

I'll take my chances with the consistent sense of what God says throughout his word, rather than the hair-splitting revisionism of the crowd. All these pagan philosophers quoted in the OP are arguing is that their definition of "murder" is different to yours. But it is a difference only in degree, not in kind. In both cases, Men decide who should live and who should die.

To even suggest that an non-implanting zygote has one iota of effect on a woman's subsequent menstruation is amusing at best.

Your name would suggest you don't know squat about what is felt.

If it weren't for artificial birth control, more women would actually be aware of their reproductive systems. As is, most are not. But that doesn't change anything.

Having experienced painful variations in my own cycle that have been medically indicative of failure, yes... I would happen to know.

You were questioning if one is worse than the other and implying that if such, than reproducing women should be following the church's guidelines on mourning for their entire reproductive lives because 1/3 of conceptions spontaneously abort.

But what I pointed out is that for most women, they are already mourning the loss... regardless of when it happened. If they knew about it in some way, they mourn.

P.s. spontaneous abortion vs. Still birth: still birth is 2nd-3rd trimester miscarriages. Spontaneous abortion is anytime in first trimester. Not just pre-implantation. And trust me, as a woman who suffers heavily in the first trimester, i would be on my knees sobbing for that loss.

Arguments from popularity are not only fallacious, but unbiblical as well.

I did not argue from popularity.

I argue that your view is not convincing and that there are an abundance of counter-examples to it; any of which may provide reasons for you to reconsider. The Gil's commentary at the link echoes St. Thomas' Aquinas argument for the death penalty--that is killing, btw--that I referred you to in a previous thread.

I am aware of your viewpoint and I have rejected it on scriptural and historical grounds.

That 'gate' by the way, is Christ himself and His atonement and resurrection at the cross that payment is mine by faith alone and the works that flow from it are a result of His Spirit changing me from the inside out. Per Chesterton, that Spirit is both lion and lamb, fully gentle and fully violent; it is this model of that stands in opposition to your model of God as lamb only.

Honestly Scuzza, the theology for physical defense of righteousness is much stronger than anything you have presented and your attempts to dissuade me are not fruitful; try if you must, but its not looking good.

Thank you. Death threats seem appropriate in my book. Do unto to others as you'd have them do unto you. That's pretty much straight forward.

My great granddaughter is living with us and I am very involved with her as her mother is otherwise occupied. I have watched everyday as she has grown from a newborn into a lovely, healthy, obstinate, laughing year and a half year toddler. One thing is abundantly clear, she was created with the understanding that someone would carefully love, feed and protect her from danger that seems to lurk everywhere. If she's not right on top of it, she's only a foot away. She's completely dependent on us to keep her alive and well cared for. I simply can't fathom how sick you'd have to be to take someone who is completely dependent on you in that way and kill her.

" ... it is this model of that stands in opposition to your model of God as lamb only. "

Again, I draw your attention to your own implicit argument; that because God is "lion and lamb" then You are entitled to behave yourself as a lion.

What's a Christian to do? Worship Christ or Chesterton? (Wouldn't that make you a Chestertonian rather than a Christian?)

It's not MY model, it is the biblical model. John proclaimed Christ as the lamb, not I.

It is not given to us to take life, for we cannot give it. You make of Man a god.

And for the record, when you refer to the numbers on your side, then you ARE arguing from popularity. You made no reference to any of those arguments other than a claim regarding Gill's commentary (which i will address below): not their content, logic, validity or relevance, but ONLY their numbers.

Perhaps you were not aware of the necessary consequence of arguing in this vein, but if so that doesn't do much to recommend your thinking on these questions.

As for Gill, he simply makes an assertion, not an argument. He claims, as you do, that "the order of the civil magistrate" is sufficient grounds to justify the Christian destroying that which God alone can create. No moral person, Christian or otherwise, at all familiar with the obscene corruption of the civil magistrates on this planet, could accede to such a claim. Perhaps you are truly totally ignorant of the consistent and inevitable corruption of these offices, but then again, that hardly would recommend your thoughts to the seeker after truth, would it?

But you and I both know you are not ignorant of the evil corruption of our civil authorities, and nor are you ignorant of the fact that "just following orders" is not a defense against treading roughshod on the holy ground of God's sole prerogatives.

No, each man must give account of his own actions for himself, and no resort to "the order of the civil magistrate" will relieve us of our burden to study and apprehend the meaning of the Word for ourselves, nor of our guilt for breaching its plainest teachings.

"It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble."I believe this not as an angry fanatic but because reason and logic suggests me that the lives of baby genociders are morally irrelevant and so it's totally fine to kill them.

"argument from authority" fair enough given what I wrote. Let me re-state it .

You wrote:

@Randomatos:

You're an expert in ancient Chaldean, I take it?

"Murder" is a legal term, and legal systems are a device of Man.

God most certainly did not and has not said "thou shalt not kill, except when enough of you agree, and then it is OK by Me."

I then link to http://biblehub.com/exodus/20-13.htm where 12 of 18 translations (presumably some ancient chaldean experts among them, yes?) render "Thou Shalt Not Kill" are "Thou shalt not murder".

Ok, why are those Bible translators wrong? Are you the expert the expert in ancient chaldean?

Now back to my 'argument from authority' I can see how you assumed that. I assumed that the fact that you where faced with translations of the Bible would be enough for you to realize your argument is weak. My bad on the assumption.

Nothing new here, Peter Singer has been arguing this since 1979 and Michael Tooley argued it in 1972. The Supreme Court found a hither to unnoticed right to an abortion in the constitution in 1973. So it didn't take any where near 42 years.

My professor Dr. Michael Tooley at CU Boulder made the connection in an article published in 1972 - obviously the year before Roe v Wade. The article "What is a Person?" later renamed as "In Defense of Abortion and Infanticide" preaches to the pro abort crowd in arguing for consistency in that a mother can kill her child for any reason prior to birth, e.g. economic, defective, Its Tuesday (ok I added that but it works!) and that she should legally be able to kill her child for the same reasons after birth. After all what moral difference is made by location status or three inches of geography? This will be a "moral" choice unto the age of 2 when the child is now considered a "person", because they become aware of self and others. Since he provocatively chose "awareness" as his criteria for legal protection, I asked him if Aunt Edna goes into a coma and is no longer "aware", then can we kill her - especially since she's rich? He deferred. Notice that he took a concept that is highly controversial among philosophers and that magically becomes the critical element for wether or not a human being can be killed! I asked him since we are just running on arbitrary these days - why not left handed people or blondes or why don't we just get right to it - why not just kill Jews? He didn't like those questions either. Once one gets in the business of assigning personhood you can just have so much fun can't you? Its not like there is any, cough untermensch cough, historical precedents to worry about. Nicest evil man I have ever known...

What constitutes a tyrannical government? How and when are Christians to respond and act when a government does become tyrannical? Are Christians to have unlimited obedience to the State? These questions and others were addressed and answered by the pastors in their Confession. In defiance of Charles V’s tyranny, they declared, “Divine laws necessarily trump human ones.” The Magdeburg Confession is the first document in the history of man to set forth the Lesser Magistrate Doctrine. The Lesser Magistrate Doctrine teaches that when a superior authority makes unjust laws or decrees, the lesser authority has a God-given right and duty to resist those unjust laws or decrees.

Fifteen Freaking Sixty Freaking Four and we are still having the same damned argument.

wow.

From this (correct, in my view) statement of the relationship of man to the state, follows the principle of the least-magistrate--i.e. my ass and my gun is my Christian duty as a responsible citizen.

Has anyone else here watched "The Man in the High Castle" on Netflix? This question is not OT.

There is a scene where a truck driver is getting help from a local policeman who helps the driver change a tire. The policeman is nice and polite, a vet from WWII, which the US lost. While they are talking ash starts to fall from the sky. The truck driver asks what's up.

The vet, who had previously stated that he didn't remember what they had been fighting for in WWII (the show is set in 1962), nonchalantly tells him that this is the day the local hospital disposes of the terminally ill patients and cripples.

You could see this one coming from popular culture. The villain in the next Avengers movie is Thanos. He's an evil eternal god that unlike the others of his race is obsessed with Death. He literally falls in love with Death that he imagines as a woman and his lover. He doesn't want to conquer the world, he wants to kill everyone in the Universe to show his love for his mistress Death. He's going to be the bad guy, but pay attention to what he does. I'd bet money they're going to telegraph their plans through what he does either literally or metaphorically. This sickos have this sick habit of showing what they want to do in movies and television shows sometimes years before they try it. Pay attention to this one, it might be their last play.

Btw, I have other basis for my p.o.v besides the doctrine stated above. Again, I am a neophyte to this position, formerly taking your view, and have changed my mind on the quality of evidence presented so far. I am open to changing it back, but the case has to be strong. You are not making it.

@ScuzzaManYou still have yet to retract your fallacious claim that abortion is the logical extension of capital punishment. I am directly calling you to retract.On the question of linguistics, SimpleTimothy beat me to the mark, but I seriously doubt you have any interest in reading anything he linked for your benefit.

Perhaps this right to kill newborns is a bit too much all in one go. So let us start with a more Modest Proposal. Either (or both) parent/s can abandon a child at birth.

If a father legally abandons his child, the mother can take over full custody and title, and vice versa.

If both abandon the child, the state can take custody and do with the infant citizen as it sees fit.

This is perhaps closer to the famous Greek/Roman tradition of leaving unwanted babies outside to face the elements (and the Gods). Or the Egyptian tradition of casting them adrift in reed baskets( a la Moses).

No doubt there were many childless people who knew where the babies were deposited and rescued those who had been "dis-owned" in this fashion.

@randomatos: you've given me no reason to retract, nor any argument as to why the statement is fallacious. I give my reasoning openly: in both cases man presumes to decide who should live and who should die.

I hold that God nowhere gives us this authority.

@SirHamster: firstly, Israel was an openly theocratic nation. they were to have no king but God. Indeed, God strictly warned them of the corruption that kings would bring, and he was not wrong in this; their kings were every bit as murderous as their pagan neighbours. One is hard put in God's denouncements to find any support for "the civil magistrate" and his opinion on who lives and who dies.

We are not the physical nation of Israel, we are their spiritual heirs and successors. We do not live under any such theocracy, but are supposed to live directly under the authority of God. Strangers in a strange land, sojourners, seekers after another city, etc.

Finally, Christ put a somewhat different spin on this question when he said: "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

As a Christian, whom should I obey? You, or Christ? For the word also says:

"Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?"

Should I worship (literally, to serve) you, or Christ? Hmmm?

@SimplyTimothy:

A Christian gun, eh? The children of Israel were never intended to fight, not even for the promised land. God promised that, due to the evil of the Canaanites, the land itself would vomit them out. It was only the wayward backsliding of Israel that obliged them to fight.

Don't take my word for it, check it out.

What revenge did Abraham take on his enemies? Job? Joseph? Moses? Daniel? Remember Jacob's distress at the revenge of his sons on the rapist of their sister? When David had the perfect legal right to kill his rebellious son Absalom, what instead was his response? He did everything he could to avoid killing the boy, and when Absalom was killed he cried: "My son! My son, Absalom! Would God I had died for thee!"

Do you not see any hint of why God would call him a man after his own heart, when God himself chose to die rather than let his sons, the children of Adam, die the death we so richly deserve?

God is love, and love gives life. Love serves life. All that gives or maintains life is of love, all that leads to death is not of love. That's why God says "All who hate me love death." Think about it:

A: "God is love"B: "All who hate me love death"

C: ???

C = A godly man kills? or

C = A godly man would rather die? (knowing the certainty of the resurrection)

I Samuel 15 Where God had instructed Saul to destroy the Amelkites--everything, women, children, livestock included. Saul killed the men and spared the goods. For this failure on Saul's part to fulfill God's command, God punished Saul.

Note, this aspect of God, irrespective of the Isreailites. God said, "kill those men, women and children"

If you are like me and think for a living and do not want to study or think in your non-job hours, then the 'just read' methodology of this plan is a Godsend. Even without digging, the structure and coherence of the Bible become evident along with some literary customs (chiasm, for example) that become familar with a 'just read it' approach.

Horner say's 10 chapters a day, but I just read until my mind starts to wander as I am drinking my coffee in the morning. If its 1 chapter, no problem, most days its about 3 or 4.

On days I would rather not read, it is easy to force myself to just read 1 chapter.

Years ago I was working in an office that was mostly women. They were clucking one day about a news story -- some woman had killed (drowned, I think) her 6-day-old baby -- and how much she deserved the death penalty, possibly with some torture first.

They didn't like it much when I pointed out that, if she'd killed the baby one week earlier, they all would have defended her.

Researching the author, the publication and the philosophy dept I say these are sick minds of the intellectual godless type whose lives are of little value. These arrogant PhDs also have scholarships available at the esteemed Oxford U

Capital punishment ain't no abortion son, don't forget who wields the sword. This will only work if/when being born is a capital crime. But being born is never an act, but something one suffers. Ergo, abuses in Capital punishment have little or nothing to do with abortion. Abortion's got everything to do with loving death; Capital punishment's got everything to do with fearing it.

@ScuzzaMan ScuzzaMan April 02, 2015 5:09 PM@randomatos: you've given me no reason to retract, nor any argument as to why the statement is fallacious. I give my reasoning openly: in both cases man presumes to decide who should live and who should die.

- Randomatos April 02, 2015 12:58 PM"...Firstly, abortion is not the logical extension of capital punishment - the infant has committed no capital crime."

The rise of abortion/infanticide in modernity is not rooted in any known theory relating to traditional punishment of crime, but rather the marriage of eugenics and birth control. This is apparent with even a cursory examination of the last 150 years of relevant history. There is no logical link between the punishment of heinous crimes with execution, and the premeditated, unprovoked termination of infants who have never committed capital crimes. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous, and both denies the weight of the criminals crimes, and spits on the innocence of the infants. Also, there are numerous instances in the bible where God directly orders men to kill other men, either in specific situations (kill all the inhabitants of city x), or as legal consequences of specific crimes, such as murder, rape, adultery, etc. There are also numerous biblical commands to protect children, raise them properly, etc. There is no biblical support for conflating criminals with infants.Do you require further examination of the statement, or are you willing to recant now?

So pizza places and wedding bakers in Indiana have the "right of association" as cover for their bigotry... but a young woman can't choose to disassociate herself from an unwanted infant, even one with massive disabilities? She must be enslaved for life, even she isvra poo ed... Meanwhile it is ok for bakers and pizza companies to discriminate and take away the rights of homosexuals?

Anyways, what concerns most isn't the initial right being proposed (although it is repulsive in itself) but rather the slippery slope in which today's right leads to outright abomination once it becomes accepted.

I cannot determine if this is satire or not. Poe's law in action. It seems too obvious if it is satire for Vox to fall for it unless he is making a larger point about the gullibility of modern media, or proving a point to the commenters here, or it was still April 1st in Italy

Do realize these attitudes are depressingly common among medical professionals. Also don't forget about the doctors and nurses returning from the Ebola outbreak last year who refused to go into a 3 week quarantine. At the same time, there were two male strip dancers who thought they might have been exposed in Dallas and underwent voluntary quarantine just in case. It appears that some male strippers have a higher moral standard than medical professionals.

Lastly, realize that a higher percentage of German doctors were members and supporters of the Nazi party than any other recognizable group.

For me, the moment I realized that the Europeans had crossed the moral point of no return was when Belgium passed a law allowing children's to override their parents wishes if they decided they wanted euthanasia.

So pizza places and wedding bakers in Indiana have the "right of association" as cover for their bigotry... but a young woman can't choose to disassociate herself from an unwanted infant, even one with massive disabilities?

Let's translate:

"So bakeries can choose to not make people cake on demand, but women can't kill their kids? YOU BIGOT!!!!!

This is a place on a continuum..1/3rd of all conceptions spontaneously abort...The point of the OP is how once you allow you're on a continuum there are no objective endpoints. The problem is that seeing this as a spectrum remains unavoidable in practice.

You are a loon. There's no continuum between a guy dying of a heart attack in his sleep and a guy dying from 17 gunshots to the torso in his sleep, and there's no continuum between a miscarriage and an abortion.

There is no continuum between things that happen naturally and things that happen because of man's intervention. If you don't comprehend that, you will never climb very far up the logic tree.

I'm still waiting for you to out me as a hater and bigot and bring my business to its knees. Until you and the Red Guard get around to my personal Kritik und Selfkritik, I will pass a moment or two shredding your most recent toilet paper posting, to wit:

So pizza places and wedding bakers in Indiana have the "right of association" as cover for their bigotry

No such thing as "rights" exist. Business owners traditionally enjoy the freedom of association that all individuals possess unless same is trampled by tyrants, such as your beloved Federal Entity.

but a young woman can't choose to disassociate herself from an unwanted infant, even one with massive disabilities?

Yes, because God forbids us to kill an innocent human being under any circumstances. Having an abortion = murdering a baby; keeping Negroes from sitting down at one's lunch counter, or refusing to lend one's time and talent to a celebration of the filthy abomination of sodomy, kills no one. Gosh, that was easy.

She must be enslaved for life, even she isvra poo ed...

I'm not sure what "isvra poo ed" means, but the answer is "yes". Once a person becommes the mother or father of a child, that person is transformed from a theoretically free individual to a servant and protector of that child. Mothers and fathers are slaves to God; they care for their children by His command.

Meanwhile it is ok for bakers and pizza companies to discriminate and take away the rights of homosexuals?

Again: no such thing as rights exist. Duty is the only reality: duty to God and to one's fellow man. We are commanded to love God with the totality of our individual beings, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. By assisting homosexuals in their nauseating perversion of the natural order, we fail in both of these duties. By scorning God's clear and unambiguous command to refrain from all sexual acts except single man/single woman procreative sex within the bounds of lifetime monogamous matrimony, we show ourselves as haters of God; by encouraging our homosexual neighbors to continue in their stomach-churning sin, we show ourselves haters of our fellow men.

When Jesus was confronted with a sexual sinner, He forgave her the sin. But He would not have done so had she defiantly insisted upon her "right" to pervert the use of her body. Forgiveness requires penitence; followed by the firm intention to reform one's life. Christ did not tell the adulteress that it was okay to sleep around; He told her "Go and sin no more" [John 8:11]. The most Christian thing one can do for homosexuals is to do likewise.

You reichwingers love to talk out of both sides of your mouths!!... but a young woman can't choose to disassociate herself from an unwanted infant, even one with massive disabilities? She must be enslaved for life, even she isvra poo ed... Meanwhile it is ok for bakers and pizza companies to discriminate and take away the rights of homosexuals?

Christians, Jews and Germanic Pagans alike forbade the practice. Even it was done, and it was uncommon, it was shameful, something done in the shadows. A few Western cultures permitted exposure of an infant but my suspicion in the West this was mostly for grossly deformed children or in tines of great hunger where its arguably more humane.

This thinking, well its an atrocity far more akin to sacrifices of children to Moloch or the mass child sacrifice found in the Aztec lands and in Malta.

Its foul. Tex over at Vault Co would say its typical for melon heads and "saps" I don't know if its true but the only word I know for such people is evil.

So pizza places and wedding bakers in Indiana have the "right of association" as cover for their bigotry... but a young woman can't choose to disassociate herself from an unwanted infant, even one with massive disabilities? She must be enslaved for life, even she isvra poo ed... Meanwhile it is ok for bakers and pizza companies to discriminate and take away the rights of homosexuals?

1. false summaries, (check)2. digressions into motivation and psychological diagnosis, 3. appeals to emotion, (check)4. the production of ad hoc definitions, 5. the targeting of strawmen rather than the actual statements made. (check)

3 out of 5 right out of the box. I predict the remaining (Vox Day's Handy-Dandy-Gamma Checklist Items) in less than 5 comments.

Almost all high IQ "white" males conceived after Roe versus Wade consciously or subconsciously believe in their mother's "right" to have killed them in utero. Subsequently, that same collective of high IQ "white" males would argue against their right to exist at conception. And the paradox is that such belief in self-annihilation seems little more than the product of a high IQ.

So your contention is that God delegates to humans to decide who lives and who dies? In the commandment itself? Murder being a legal term of art defined by humans and subject to great variability in time and place, as this very thread demonstrates.

Once these idiots quoted in the OP are in the majority, or have a majority of like-minded people elected to the judiciary, then it is no longer murder to kill your 5 year old son because his total dependence on you is a dis-utility to your pursuit of personal satisfaction.

And you'll have no problem with that because "the civil magistrate" has averred that such killing is not legally murder - right?

(No, we know you will protest, vigorously.)

When you cannot live by your own avowed principles, then either your theory or your practice is in error.

Well, at least you condescended to attempt an argument. Unfortunately, your attempt does not address what I wrote.

I did not at all say or imply that abortion is rooted in any openly promulgated theory of crime and punishment. What I did say is that it is a logical extension of the practice of judicial killings, both being rooted in the presumption that humans get to decide who lives and who dies, and that once we arrogate that authority to ourselves then all else (including the idiocy quoted by our host in the OP above) follows inevitably from that hubristic presumption.

The distinctions you rely on are distinctions in degree only, not in kind. They are, demonstrably, culturally determined and highly variable in time and place. There is only one clean unambiguous law which does not suffer from this problem:

@ScuzzaMan: No, that is not my contention, and I have no idea where you would derive that from. I simply corrected the verbiage. If you don't like it, talk to the person who wrote it. If you think murder isn't defined in the Scripture, it's because you haven't read it, or didn't understand what you read. Who do you think carries out the punishments for violations of the Commandments? I'll tell you, the congregation, under the direction of the Levite and Aaronic priests. At least, that's how the system was set up. Why do you think there's a whole book about judges (I'll leave it to the reader to figure out which book it is) if people aren't to be judges? Not only that, but murder isn't the only type of killing discussed in the law, just the only one mentioned by name in a Commandment. Manslaughter is specifically lined out. If you kill someone through negligence, that's not murder. If you can't pay the damages you owe for them, you are to be exiled to the City of Refuge. There's a whole section about oxen kicking people and whether beating people and causing them to die is the same as oxen kicking people to death, etc. Also, what about the story of Samson? Haven't you ever read it? Apparently not. And David, who is called the most righteous man to ever live and who killed many, many people. Moses killed a slavedriver. Joshua completely leveled Jericho. The Scripture is FULL of people killing other people, but not being murderers. Apparently you don't like to read your source material, because you're pretty shockingly ignorant of it. The word, in the original, is רָצַח

Speaking of ignorance of source material; who spoke those words? In what circumstance? (i.e. what was the Mosaic LEGAL penalty for the crime of which the woman in question was accused?)

Are you a Mosesian or a Christian?

I know which I am, and I know the source material quite well. David was a murderer AND a killer. Moses killed and murdered the Egyptian. Many sins are recorded in scripture, but that record is not implicit endorsement.

@ScuzzaManYou claim that abortion is a logical extension of capital punishment. I call bull. You ignore all logical statements showing your equivocation to be utter bull. You even demonstrate the stupidity to claim that executing a murderous criminal and murdering an infant are only degrees apart, rather than not even in the same realms of actions. You should be ashamed of yourself, but instead you feel morally superior, in spite of being an ignorant gamma prick who denigrates infants to the moral equivalent of heinous criminals. You are ignorant of the language, you are ignorant of the actual biblical history of capital punishment, and you are willfully ignorant of logic and reasoning, relying instead on sweeping emotional statements. And before you ignore what P-Dawg and SimpleTimothy offered you, ask yourself this - is God consistent to himself? If it is absolutely wrong to punish capital criminals with capital punishment, then why did God do so, both directly by striking people down in both old and new testaments, and ordering his people to execute certain classes of criminals? For the purposes of reducing your subsequent evasions, consider this a direct question, requiring either a direct answer, or a direct retraction.

I've already mentioned that Israel was a theocracy, ruled directly by God via Moses and then later the judges and the kings (with some high priests and prophets mixed in).

None of us can argue with God; what he decides goes and we can only become morally culpable by disobedience to his commands, whether we understand them or not.

But the salient point is that God did not command them to seek out and slay all such criminals, but only those amongst themselves. For it was the nation of israel who stood beneath the mountain and entered into covenant with him by promising: "All that the Lord hath said, we will do."

God did command them to slay the canaanites also, but again (1) this was not a general instruction to slay all pagans, and (2) it was not his intention for them to do even this. The "necessity" for them to fight was a direct result of their backsliding disobedience; God's plan was that the land itself would drive out the canaanites, just as the people of Israel did nothing to free themselves of their Egyptian slavemasters.

For someone who likes to claim that I am ignorant of the source material, you sure seem to have skipped significant elements of it.

One, there's never been any shortage of people who think differently, so there's never been any shortage of armies to oppose invaders.

Two, for me it comes down to a simple question of faith. I quoted this in a parallel, earlier, thread:

"Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God."

That's a fairly direct question isn't it? Who you gonna trust? Who will you rely on? When push comes to shove, will you try to defeat your enemy by becoming a more proficient killer than he, or will you "overcome evil with good"?

I concede there doesn't seem to be much - if any - ground between these options. It is a stark choice.

So, I pretty much agree with the original post, but I am curious as to why this is making the rounds now? This is perhaps the third or fourth place I have seen this featured in the last few days. The interesting thing is that the original article came out about three years ago. I saw some discussion about it then, but I am wondering at what kicked up the interest in it just now. I am not theorizing some kind of tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy, I just think it is odd that this is making the rounds now after being dormant for the last three years or so.

It's because in three short years as the acceleration of white self-annihilaton proceeds as though "we" had crossed the event horizon, some can "see" this rapid "advance" towards existential oblivion and simply say so.

When one gets to the real crux of the radical liberationist's belief in abortion/infanticide/murder, one recognizes that the "principle" at the root of the belief is simple lack of awareness of the killing act. In other words, when push comes to shove, IF I put a shovel across the back of the head of Dr. Infanticide AND said "doctor" is completely unaware of my killing act THEN such act is not really murder ACCORDING to Dr, Infanticide FOR "it" is now totally oblivious to the very act that ended "it" all.

What you don't know kills you and thus you haven't really been killed BECAUSE "you" = forever oblivious.

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